I think I did have a cross-section, I put all three on a large sheet, with the intention of doing an interior section-cut too, but I got busy with school and never got around to it... 15 years later, I'm drawing it all up on cad. This will probably be the next project after Nostromo.
I only scanned these images before I left England for the US a few years ago, and I'm pretty certain they are still in storage somewhere in my folks house.

basically I am just looking for a comparison of the angles in degrees... These are superb diagrams, I am thinking of doing a shuttle, I have something planned that Phase Pistol is going to help me with, but that is another story with a sordid history from others that needs cleaning up..

. These diagrams have an excellent ratio and clarity. They would be very usable to a near future project.

... which actually looks pretty much just like the fullsized set and the "forced perspective"model that they built!

Later of course they built the "stretched" model which is how we remember the ship usually. But they had to duplicate the detail from the "stubby" first model as best they could. So the hardware in the cutaway areas gets really interesting between the two versions....

Joseph, I almost agree with you... Yes, Cobb's design really looks like a space lifeboat and I like its exagonal shape (I'll turn one of my Narcissus models into this version someday if I have time) !

however, I think Martin Bower & Bill Pearson were right when they changed the front, because adding length and a nose turned this ship into something much more dynamic... and dynamic it had to be to escape the refinery in time before it exploded !!!

BTW, found this Cobb design for the Nostromo in "From sketch to screen", a book about SciFi & Fantasy models published in 1997 by Strange Light (UK).

I post it here too (already did on the Nostromo thread) because it helps explain the final shape of the Narcissus... Here is what Bill Pearson says about miss Piggy nose :

The Narcissus escape unit first appeared in our workshop in the form of a cardboard mockup of only the rear section which had been built full size for the final sequence.
The only drawing we had (Note : He's refering to Cobb's "lifeboat" design here) seemed to indicate that the front mimicked exactly the shape of the rear, but minus the engine pods. Martin & myself drew this up and it looked very squat and, we thought, "frankly, awful". Our compromise was to stretch the front and I also added dual lobes to draw some comparison to the Nostromo tug.

Fred_________________THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST

Last edited by SKIN JOB 66 on Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:15 am; edited 1 time in total

Here is the art department reference maquette delivered to the modelshop to help them buid a model of the Narcissus. It was also used as ref to build the full scale set used when the Alien is ejected in space...

Yes, mine is from ALIENS. I would prefer the original. The one in the red photos is one Martin Bower constructed a couple of years ago. The originals whereabouts is still unknown. I've heard stories that it was stolen.
I plan on doing a kit of the original Narcissus if I could ever get the dimensions.